


The Ego and the Id

by seatbeltdrivein



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Cousin Incest, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-30
Updated: 2010-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-11 08:58:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seatbeltdrivein/pseuds/seatbeltdrivein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When you're in love, anything can make sense." Molly would do anything for Dominique, even if it meant losing her family forever. [Written for nextgendarkfest's 2010 round.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ego and the Id

I lifted my head from Dominique's shoulder, head foggy from sleep and neck stiff. "Are we there?" I muffled a yawn behind my hand. Dominique shrugged, getting up on her knees to grab our trunks from the overhead compartments.

"I think so. The train stopped a few minutes ago." My trunk dropped to the floor, hers following seconds later. "Mum wrote me; I told you, right? Said we were all meeting at Grandma's for dinner!"

"My mother's letting me?" I asked skeptically. Normally I'd be marched off the train and thrown headlong into summer lessons. The train let out a piercing shriek, a warning to any students who hadn't disembarked. I pulled off my robe and stuffed it quickly into my trunk.

"Surprising, right?" Dominique grinned, settling back into the seat next to me, unhurried. Her shirt was wrinkled and unbuttoned, the lacy cups of her bra just barely peeking out from the gap. I deftly re-did them, chewing my lips at the sight of the rest of her. Dominique refused to remain put together, despite her mother and sister's complaints. She was her father's girl, not a doll, and she made it a point to remind everyone she could of that. I pushed her hair out of her face, and her grin softened, her hand finding mine against her cheek. "Don't worry about your mom, Molly," she said, pressing a kiss to my fingers. "She's a stupid bint, anyway!"

"Hah!" I scoffed at her, shaking my head. "Tell _her_ that, then!"

The door to our compartment banged open and we jerked apart, my face burning a dark red.

"What are you still doing?" Victoire poked her head in, lips pursed. "Almost everyone is off already!"

"Sorry," I said hastily, heading off whatever verbal strike Dominique was readying for her sister. "I fell asleep."

Victoire rolled her eyes, but she smiled anyway, laughing. "You could fall asleep anywhere, couldn't you? Well, hurry it up. Everyone's waiting!"

"She's just in a rush because Teddy's coming over tonight," Dominique said when her sister disappeared from sight. "She's been _gagging_ for it since we got back to school after the holidays!"

"Don't be so vulgar," I said, wrinkling my nose. "She's your sister, remember?"

"Whatever." Dominique rolled her eyes.

We finished shoving all of our spread out belongings into our trunks and hurried out of the compartment, dodging around a group of twitchy looking first years as we darted from the train.

Our family was quite possibly the most recognizable family in all of the Wizarding World. Except for a few in-laws, we all had freckled faces and red hair in a variation of shades. Standing in a group of nearly twenty people, we were downright frightening. People alternated between gawking at us and staring at the floor when we walked by them. My father always said it was because of the war. _Every_ Weasley was in the war, in one way or another.

But that was all he ever had to say about _that._

"Oh, there they are! Girls!" Aunt Ginny waved at us, her other hand gripping Lily's shoulder tightly. Lily always seemed worked up about something, so seeing her eyes red-rimmed didn't surprise either of us.

"One of the Scamander boys," Dominique whispered into my ear.

"Got to be," I muttered back.

"It feels like I haven't seen you two in years!" Aunt Ginny grabbed us both, one under each arm, and squeezed us tight. When she let us go, she focused her attention on me. "And I'm to deliver a message. Your parents say they're sorry they can't be here to pick you up, but Percy and your mum are already at the Burrow. They're helping your grandparents get everything ready."

"It's fine," I said.

"It's wonderful," Dominique said.

"Dominique!" Ginny scolded, though not very convincingly. For whatever reason, Aunt Ginny wasn't overly fond of my mother. Their interactions ranged between coolly polite to blisteringly tense.

The thing about meeting up at the platform at the beginning of the summer holiday is that there are just so many of us—you manage to get away from one relative only to back up into the arms of another.

"Mother!" Dominique pressed a kiss to her mum's cheek and ignored the eye-roll from her sister. "Where's Dad?"

"Somewhere," Fleur said dismissively. "'E cannot stand so many people in one place. We will see him outside of the station, no doubt."

"Can we go?" James said, popping out of nowhere with a fistful of _Weasley's Wheezes_ products dangling from his pants pocket. "I really think we should be leaving now."

"What did you do?" Aunt Ginny rounded on him and the rest of us resigned ourselves to at least another half hour in the packed platform.

Year after year, it seemed as if nothing ever changed. I followed a set routine varied only in how often I could steal away with Dominique. I hated it and spent every moment that I could trying to find a way around the monotony, imagining myself in one of the faraway places I always read about, arms spread wide, the sun behind me and the promise of freedom stretched out as far as I could see. Dominique would be at my side, and we would be happy.

~

The Burrow was packed. Dominique and I stuck to the kitchen, sucking on ice cubes and dodging the younger cousins as they ran in and out the backdoor, water pistols at the ready.

"I wish Uncle George hadn't given them those," I said, wiping my glasses off for what had to be the fifth time in ten minutes. "What a nuisance!"

"Oh, don't be such a snob! At least we don't have to look after them. Merlin, remember when Al and James were little?" Dominique shuddered exaggeratedly and popped another cube in her mouth. "Right monsters, those two were!"

"Teddy says the same thing about you," I reminded her, ducking behind the counter as Fred came zooming through the door, pistol at the ready. "Hey! Back outside!" Fred gave me a baleful look and stumbled back out the door. Dominique laughed.

By the time dinner came around, it had become less of an organized affair and more of an urgent need to find a flat surface to sit at and balance food on. Dominique and I gave up on finding a quiet place in the Burrow and waved off her mother when she called us to sit with the adults.

Dad and Mum had barely had time to say a word, though Dad did give me a quick, one-armed hug and a congratulations for my marks as I was piling food onto my plate.

"Uncle Percy's a little too into organizing," Dominique commented as we walked out the back door, stepping carefully around the various discarded toys and brooms to get to the shed. "How much longer is he going to spend on folding napkins?" I just laughed.

The shed had been filthy for years. No one ever went in it but Grandpa, but even he avoided it. It wasn't until Dominique found out that Teddy and her sister had been cleaning the old shed up as a spot to snog that we bothered going out there at all.

I gave a low whistle as I walked in, holding the door for Dominique. "I can tell Teddy's been here recently."

"Of course," Dominique snorted. "I bet he cleaned it out early so he and Victoire can sneak out easier." Easier, or course, meaning without Uncle Bill noticing.

Dominique balanced both of our plates while I dragged over three boxes, arranging them like a mini dining room.

It was getting dark quickly, and even with the lighting charm Dominique had cast, we still had to lean in close to see what was on our plates, laughing whenever one of us missed and spilled a forkful of potatoes down our front.

"This is terrible! We should have just grabbed a blanket and eaten outside," Dominique said, wiping a glob of gravy off her shirt.

"Probably. Maybe next time—"

"Girls!"

We both jumped, knocking the box we'd been using as a table to the ground, food spilling everywhere.

"What in the world are you doing?" My mother's nose wrinkled. "This shed is filthy! Why are you eating in here?" she asked, and then added: "And alone, at that!"

"We just wanted a bit of quiet," I said, shooting Dominique a look. She always had to say something to my mother, always had to start a fight—

"If that's fine with _her majesty_, that is." Dominique's voice was poison. I cringed and looked at my feet.

"You're just a child," my mother said casually. "I don't have the time to spare, bickering with you."

"We'll come inside," I blurted. "We just need to clean up—"

"Make sure you do. Molly shouldn't have to follow you two around with her wand!"

I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I knew she didn't mean to sound so cruel. She just expected better of me, wanted me to be someone who amounted to something.

It just stung, knowing that I would never live up to my mother's image.

With one final sharp look, my mother spun on her heel, the shed door snapping shut behind her.

Dominique rounded on me the moment the door closed. "How can you let her talk to you that way?"

"She's my mother!" I cried. "What could I say to—"

"That's just it, Molly!" Dominique said, her voice rising higher and higher. "She's your _mother_! She has no right—"

"There's nothing I can do. She—I can't change the way she thinks!"

"She hates me," Dominique hissed. "She always has. You know she suspects!"

"She couldn't," I denied. "She's never caught us—"

"Molly, you're smarter than that." Dominique's voice dropped, each word tinged with a bitter sorrow. "Why else would she go out of her way to follow us around?"

I couldn't deny it. My mother had a habit of creeping up on us at every possible opportunity. We were always so careful, but I often wondered if it was enough.

"We're careful," I said. I wasn't convincing her anymore than I was convincing myself. "She doesn't know anything."

It was the same, tired argument, one we'd had a thousand times before and would likely have for the rest of our lives, I thought. We stood in a heavy silence, Dominique's eyes boring into me.

"You said anything didn't you, Molly? Anything for me?" Dominique's voice was quiet, sudden.

"I—yeah," I said helplessly. "I did." Over and over, I'd told her that all our lives. I crossed my arms, holding them tight to my chest as she began pacing.

"What if—Molly," she breathed, her eyes wide with the force of an epiphany that would shake our world. "What if we made it so _no one_ would try to separate us?"

"But no one is," I persisted. "My mother—"

"—is there, always there!" Dominique growled. She looked ferocious, and I could remember, then, the stories some of the adults told about Uncle Bill and just why it was that he and Teddy could relate so easily to one another. "If she would just—if we could—" She seemed unable to verbalize the thought.

"What are you saying?" I asked. I took a step forward, my hands holding her shoulders, keeping her in place. She looked like a wild animal for one brief, terrifying moment, as if she would lash out and tear me into a million pieces before even realizing what she'd done.

"If we could get rid of your mother, no one would try to keep us apart." Her words rang loudly in the small shed and echoed in my mind as if she'd shouted them.

"Get—get _rid_ of her?" I stared. "Dom—you don't mean—"

"Oh, I don't know what I mean," she bit out angrily. "I just—I love you!"

She didn't say it aloud very often. That was usually me. My heart seized up in my chest and my eyes felt itchy. I knew that I would do absolutely anything for her.

"I love you too," I said, barely above a whisper.

"There has to be something we can do," she tried again.

"I'll—we'll think about it," I said, my arms slipping off her shoulders. Her hand found mine, fingers twining together, and I felt certain that nothing could ever keep us apart, not my mother, not any other relative—nothing in the world.

When you're in love, anything can make sense.

~

Summer was always my least favorite time of the year. I constantly felt torn between Dominique and my mother, each pushing me towards their own ends. It was only a matter of time before things went rolling downhill.

We'd almost made it to September when it finally did.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked, shoving Dominique's trunk into my closet. "There's still two weeks until classes, and you _know_ how Mum—"

"Oh, please," Dominique laughed, waving her hand. "It's just your mum. Uncle Percy will keep her busy, and I'll avoid her." At my disbelieving look, she sighed. "I _promise_ I won't goad Aunt Audrey on. Cross my heart!"

"Well," I said, "all right." It was a reluctant acquiescence at best. I knew from the beginning it was a terrible idea to have Dominique and my mother under the same roof for an extended period. Merlin, _everyone_ knew that!

"Let's just—be careful, all right?" I pleaded. "Don't do anything odd—"

"And what do you mean by odd?" Dominique gave me a sidelong glance, sitting stiffly on my bed.

"You know it's not that I think it's odd," I began, "but my mother—"

"Why does it have to be about her?" Dominique demanded. "What about us? What about _you_?"

"I'm just one person," I said, "and she's my mother—your aunt! It's family—"

"I don't care about family," Dominique said in a quiet, cool voice. "I care about you."

"I know." I sounded defeated. I should have been flattered that Dominique, who was so strong and beautiful and everything I could never be, would be so willing to drop everything for me. I should have felt a lot of things, but in the face of her obvious disregard for her family—our family—I only felt torn.

A sharp knock sounded at the door. "Molly?" Dad poked his head in, grinning at the two of us, his glasses dropping down the bridge of his nose. "It's dinner time."

"Brilliant! I'm starving," Dominique said, sliding off the bed.

Feeling as if I'd swallowed a stone, I followed Dominique and my father to the dining room.

Lucy was gone, staying the night with Roxanne, so there was no one to distract my mother. My father kept his head down, the _Prophet_ spread open next to his plate.

"So, then, Dominique," my mother began, "how were your marks?"

"Fine." Dominique looked straight over my mother's shoulder, eyes focused on the wall, and I knew she was thinking of her promise.

"Dominique's been made captain for the Gryffindor team," I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. "The team won almost every—"

"Quidditch won't get you anywhere in the real world," was all my mother had to say to that. Dominique seethed next to me, and I grabbed her hand under the table, letting her squeeze as tightly as she wanted, my whole mind focused on one single wish: _Please don't let them start fighting._

Dad started humming under his breath.

"And what do you plan on doing once you graduate?" My mother continued her interrogation, appearing oblivious to Dominique's stormy expression. "You're going into your seventh year, after all. Surely you have plans beyond _Quidditch._"

She drew out the word like a curse, and Dominique squeezed my hand so hard I felt the bones creak. I did my best to smile and not cringe.

"Molly's planning on working in the Ministry, of course."

I wasn't. I'd never cared for politics.

"With her grades, she can do whatever she wants," my father joked, joining in for the first time. Mum shot him a sharp look. He ignored it. "You know, a few of your uncles wanted to go into professional Quidditch after graduating. Charlie even got an offer—"

"And of course, he rejected it," my mother cut in smoothly. "There's just no future there."

"Well, Charlie always had his own interests…" Dad trailed off with an uneasy shrug, giving Dominique and me a smile before redirecting his attention to his plate.

Dinner remained a tense affair until we'd all emptied our plates. The food sat heavily in my stomach, churning uneasily under the weight of my mother's stare. She'd been agitated the moment Dominique arrived, and I knew she wouldn't be happy until we'd both boarded the Hogwarts Express.

"Let's go back to my room," I muttered under my breath. Dominique nodded and followed me back down the hall. As soon as the door shut, I turned, grabbing her sleeve. "Dom, I am so sorry. I didn't think she'd—"

"It's not your fault. Aunt Audrey," she sneered, "has never liked me. Never will. She can go rot as far as I'm concerned."

While I hated hearing her say things like that—the woman was my mother, and I loved her regardless of her propensity for piling unrealistic expectations on me—I couldn't fault Dominique for her anger. If Aunt Fleur spoke to me the way my mother spoke to Dominique, I wouldn't know how to react.

"Maybe—" I swallowed, meeting Dominique's eyes. "Maybe it would be best if we went to stay somewhere else. Let's Floo Call Roxanne tomorrow. Lucy's there, so I'm sure we could—"

"And what, let your mum win? Let her know she got to me? I don't think so!" Dominique scoffed.

It wasn't worth it, letting Dominique's pride sway my decisions, but there wasn't anything else I could do.

I loved her.

We spent the next week tiptoeing around the house under my mother's watchful eyes, wary of every touch, every smile we exchanged in her line of sight. It was maddening to have to censor ourselves so carefully, but I was certain that the alternative would have been much worse.

"I hate this," Dominique said during one of our few quiet moments. Her head rested on my shoulder, and my eyes immediately drifted to the cracked-open door.

"I know," I said. "I wish—"

"Don't." She sat up. "I've told you, this isn't your fault. It's—it's your bitch of a mother, always lurking about, trying to catch us out—"

"Dominique!"

She gritted her teeth and looked away.

With every passing day, I could feel Dominique growing closer and closer to a boiling point. It was with that in mind that I begged my parents to let us stay home when they made plans to go pick up Lucy from Uncle George and Aunt Angelina's house.

"But why?" Dad frowned. "It's been so long since they've seen you!"

"To be honest," I said, looking straight at the floor, "I still have some summer work to finish. Dominique does, too." I was lying, of course. I kept my eyes trained to the hardwood floor, praying they wouldn't catch on. I'd never been a very convincing actress.

Luckily, school was the one point my parents wouldn't mess around with.

"You should have had it all done weeks ago!" Mum said, scowling.

"Audrey, relax." Dad put a hand on her arm, and the lines between her eyes deepened. "I'm sure they'll both get everything done. We'll just leave them here for the night."

"The night?" Mum shook her head. "Absolutely not!"

"They're both nearly seventeen, Audrey. I'm sure they can handle themselves without adult supervision for a night." Dad's voice was dry, and I could tell it was a conversation they'd had before.

"Fine." Mum sniffed. "They can stay here."

I all but ran back to my room, closing the door quickly behind me, a grin breaking over my face uninhibited.

"No way," Dominique said. "You mum's actually letting us stay here?"

"Dad made her," I said excitedly.

"Uncle Percy actually stood up to her?" Dominique's brows shot up. "I almost wish I'd been there. Has he ever disagreed with her before?"

"Not that I know of!"

It had been so long, we nearly couldn't wait. Between our own excitement and how on-edge my mother was, the day felt like it would never end. When the clock chimed six in the evening, Dominique and I were nearly dancing.

"We'll be back in the morning," Dad said, waving us off. "Try not to burn down the house!" He disappeared into the fireplace, my mother following behind him with her mouth set in a grim line, not bothering to say a word to us.

"Merlin, I thought they'd never leave," Dominique said, letting out a sigh. "Your mum is such a bitch, you know?"

I nodded. I was too happy to finally be alone with her to bother myself with Dominique's words. We stood quietly in the sitting room for all of a minute before Dominique waggled her brows at me and darted down the hall.

We crammed into my bed, giggling as we used to when we'd have slumber parties before Hogwarts. But back then, Dominique didn't watch me as she did in that moment, and I never got dry in the mouth just by looking at her.

"Your parents aren't here." A blessing. Her hand rested just under my shirt, cool on my back.

"Thank Merlin," I whispered back. I could feel my face burning as she leaned in, her lips soft against my own. I wasn't anywhere near as beautiful as Dominique was, with her strawberry hair and wild blue eyes. She was perfect, everything anyone could want to be, and I was small and plain and boring. I looked like someone pasted breasts onto a picture of my father as a teenager. No girl wanted that.

"Stop thinking," she laughed into the kiss. "You worry too much!" I didn't want to hear it, so I closed my eyes and ran my tongue along her lips. It never ceased to amaze me how quickly Dominique set my heart to pounding, no matter how familiar the feel of her body became.

"I love you," I said. She rolled me onto my back, her knees on either side of my hips, and grinned that wild, reckless grin I loved to see.

"You know how I feel." She said it every time. Her skirt stretched tight, pulling up around her waist. She rocked against me, and I could feel her heat.

"You—you aren't wearing any knickers!" I gave her a scandalized look.

"And you are," she said, popping the waistband of my trousers. "Take them off." My face burned as she rolled off to the side, the skirt still bunched around her waist, her knees spread so I could see just how ready she was. I squeezed my thighs for a brief moment and jerked my trousers and knickers off in one quick movement, kicking them off the bed and scrambling over her, mouth dry and heart pounding.

We were lost in each other, our bodies molding together to form the perfect girl. There was no reason to hold back, no reason to be careful. We were alone, we'd thought.

We were wrong.

My mother had the uncanny ability to walk without making a sound. She could move down the hallway and a pin dropping on the hard floor would still be louder.

"I knew it!"

We jerked apart, but there was no saving face. We were naked, clothes spread all over the room. I pulled my hands from between her legs and stared in horror at my mother. She stood in the doorway, a triumphant, nearly manic look on her face.

Dominique had been right along. Mum had been looking for proof of her daughter and niece's degeneracy, and she'd found it.

Dominique slid away from me, curling into herself against the headboard, her face drawn.

"I knew this would happen. I knew it _was_ happening." My mother's face was dark, and she stepped into the room from the hall, her presence as foreboding as a Dementor's.

"Mum—"

"Don't you _Mum_ me," she spat. "How could you do this? This is disgusting!"

Dominique took in a shaky breath, and I resisted the urge to grab her hand.

"It's not disgusting," I said, my voice growing stronger. "We’re in love! There's nothing disgusting about love!"

"Even aside from the fact that you are _both girls_," my mother said, her voice surprisingly calm, "you must realize that what you're doing has a name. She's your cousin, Molly. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"No," I said, but my strength had begun to fade and my voice shook.

It couldn't be wrong. I wouldn't let it be wrong.

"Molly." My mother's voice was patient, sounding almost forgiving. "Swear it to me—swear this will not happen again. Promise you'll forget about this—this experimental tryst and I'll not say a word. We can all three of us pretend this never happened."

And there it was, her offering. My mother had extended the olive branch, and the look on her face said we'd be fools not to take it.

Dominique made no move either way. She looked frozen, the gravity of the situation too much for her to bear.

Accepting her offer was the rational thing to do, and doing what would be considered rational or acceptable was what I did best. But the look on Dominique's face, the pale, pinched look of despair, was sickening. I'd never seen her look so lost, so terrified—so unhappy.

If there was one thing I couldn't stand, it was seeing Dominique sad. The sight wrenched my heart painfully.

"No." My voice was nearly a whisper, and my mother leaned forward, eyes wide.

"No?" She repeated the word as if it were foreign. The surprise on her face was almost comical, and I let out a shrill, nervous giggle.

"I—I can't. I won't forget." I stood from the bed and pulled my trousers on with shaking hands. "I can’t do that to her."

Dominique's head jerked up, the first sign of life since my mother had burst into our world.

"Molly," she said, her eyes sad but her lips tipping upward into a watery smile.

"I can't believe this," my mother said, her mouth twisted. "My own daughter… Well, we'll just see about this. If you won't forget about this—this disgusting farce, then we'll just have to see what your family says about this."

"Mum!" I cried as she spun from the room.

Dominique and I traded a look; I knew I must have looked just as sick as she did. Mum was going to the Floo, was going to call over to where my father was. She was going to tell them everything, and knowing her, she was going to do it _loudly._

_If we could get rid of your mother, no one would try to keep us apart._

Dominique's words came rushing back, the intense look on her face from that night striking a chord in my mind.

"If we could get rid of her…" I mouthed the words, my eyes wide.

"Molly," Dominique said, her voice colored with alarm. "Molly, where are you going?"

But I was already on my feet, running from the room in a blind fury, my mind clutching tight to that one, poison thought.

_If we could get rid of your mother, no one would try to keep us apart._

Mum was standing in front of the Floo, a handful of powder in her fist. I didn't hesitate, didn't bother to shout for her stop. In one movement, I ran into the room and lunged at her, knocking her off her feet, shrieking.

Floo powder went everywhere, but the fireplace remained blessedly empty. My mother's eyes bored up into my own, and my hands wound around her throat.

"Molly," she pleaded. "Molly, _please_—I won't—won't tell—" Her voice broke off into a brittle gasp, her breath shaking in her throat. "M-Molly—"

I heard Dominique run into the room. Looking over my shoulder, I saw her framed in the doorway to the sitting room, a hand over her mouth. My grip loosened for a split second at the look on her face, but just as quickly, her face morphed into a grim, hard look of determination and she shook her head sharply.

My grip tightened, and my mother's hands came up, clawing at my arms. I didn't relent, pressing as hard as I could. Dominique came up behind me, wrapped her arms around my waist, and grabbed my mother's wand from her robe pocket, throwing it to the side.

"You should have left us alone," Dominique said, her voice steel. "You shouldn't have meddled."

Tears were welling in my mother's eyes, her veins throbbing. I pressed down tighter and felt her breath still in her throat. She began flailing her arms, squirming desperately. I heard Dominique moving around behind me, but I was too focused, too determined. I did not turn around.

"Molly," Dominique said, her voice fire. "Move."

Without hesitation, I rolled to the side, moving quickly from my mother, who let out a gasp, her lungs taking in gulps of air. Her eyes were wild, and I felt scared for just a moment. I looked at Dominique, wondering what she was thinking.

And then Dominique moved. She'd grabbed one of the chairs from the kitchen and had it held high over her head, her eyes fierce.

She didn't speak as she brought down the chair hard, the first strike drawing a terrified scream from my mother's throat. The second strike crushed her skull, and my mother fell silent, a pool of red spreading around her head.

I stood still, watching as Dominique brought the chair down again and again, the blood splattering everything, until my mother was nothing more than a crushed mess on the floor, barely recognizable.

When she finally dropped the chair, Dominique looked over at me, her eyes wide, face painted with red droplets.

"I love you," she said, and again the words echoed in my mind: _If we could get rid of your mother, no one would try to keep us apart._

My mother was gone, but the reality of it was obvious. Everyone would be trying to find us now. Everyone would be trying to keep us apart.

As we scrambled through the house, grabbing anything we could find that might be useful and stashing away every bit of money Wizard and Muggle alike, the world fell frozen with the knowledge that we had alienated ourselves from our own families, our own lives.

~

We left the blood on the floor in search of something new and free. The train didn't leave for another hour, so we split a styrofoam cup of weak coffee from a vendor between us, huddled on the stiff wooden benches with heads turned inward, blocking out the wind.

"We should go further." Dominique's eyes cut across the station, eying an old man hiding behind a newspaper just on the other side. "France—my mother's family is there, Molly. We shouldn't stay long."

"We should go east," I tried. "Or maybe America." It was wishful thinking and we both knew it. The hundred or so Galleons we had bundled safely in Dominique's handbag were useless to us, and the majority of our combined Muggle money was nearly gone from the cost of the tickets. She gripped my hand until the flesh went white and smiled, a grim parody of her usual demeanor.

"What do we do?" I hated hearing the helplessness in her voice. She was too proud, too strong, and I'd ruined it all.

"I love you," I said. It was all there was now, and if it could make things better, I knew I'd say it over and over. She mouthed the words back, her smile growing, spreading to her eyes. I leaned close, pressing my forehead to hers. At the end of the station, the old man grabbed his paper and walked away, shaking his head.

The train wasn't on time, and every minute past the hour left us both wary. It was late, dark already, and we were too close to London. Too close to everything we were running from.

"There it is!" Dominique grabbed my arm, her voice just barely above a whisper. "Come on." She pulled me up from the bench. "We can get on first!" The spring was back in her step. She dragged me along, her long legs taking one step to my three.

"Dom!" I laughed, feeling ridiculous as I tried to keep pace. She stopped as the train pulled in and stood in the fluorescent station lighting, the light striking a sickly yellow veil over her strawberry hair. "You're going to jerk my arm off!"

"Oh please!" So long as she smiled, it didn't matter what she did, I decided. "Where do you want to sit, anyway?" The doors slid open, and she took a quick step back, casting nervous glances at the train. "I've never been on a Muggle train before. Do you," she paused and licked her lips, hesitant. "Do you think it'll be much different?"

"I don't think so." I'd ridden a train in the Muggle world only once before, and in that moment, it felt like a separate lifetime. The memory of sitting snuggly between my father and sister on the train, kicking my legs and watching the outside world slide past in wonder was like something that had happened to someone else. I was looking in another girl's Pensieve without permission.

"Come on!" She was pulling again, her nails digging into my arm. "We have to go before the good seats are taken!" I complied, despite the fact that we were the only ones boarding. The old man from before had gone, apparently too disturbed by two girls sitting close to bother with something as trivial as a late night train ride.

"All right," I said, "all right!" I followed her down the aisle, watching her hips sway back and forth, her head cocked to the side as she peered in every single compartment, weighing our options.

"This one," she said, her grip on my arm slipping to my hand, her pull gentler, relaxed. "It looks just like the Hogwarts train." It didn't, but I humored her. The train had none of the familiar warmth of the Hogwarts Express, none of the friends or memories or magic. There would be no trolley woman with every sweet under the sun, no annoying cousins poking their heads in our business, and when we reached our destination—_if_, I thought, _if_ we reached it—there would certainly be no care packages or letters from home.

_Especially_ no letters from home.

I leaned my head against her shoulder, peering up at her closed eyes, her face relaxed despite it all. The train jolted to a start, and Dominique made no move to acknowledge it, her eyelids already flickering in deep slumber. My gaze fell to the window, watching the train pick up speed, watching London disappear into the distance.

That night, as I rested my head against Dominique's shoulder and clasped our hands in my lap, I watched home fade away into a silly girl's dream and felt the weight of despair heavy on my heart.


End file.
